This is Really Going to Exacerbate Things
by Keitorin Asthore
Summary: Finn drags Kurt to Rachel's Halloween party  while dressed as Shaun of the Dead characters . Kurt could really care less...until they bust out crappy scary movies. Let's just say he's not a horror fan. Spoilers for the movie Ghost Ship. Oneshot. COMPLETE.


Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy and Fox, not me. Neither does Ghost Ship.

* * *

"We look _awesome._"

"You look normal. I look ridiculous."

"I'm serious! These are the greatest Halloween costumes ever."

"No, they are _not. _I can't believe you made me do this. I get to pick our costumes next year."

"Okay."

"What size dress do you wear?"

"I think I'm a…hey, wait! You're going to make me wear a dress?"

Luckily the door opened before the conversation could continue. "Happy Halloween!" Rachel said, even perkier than usual.

Kurt looked her up and down. "Oh my god," he said. "Did you fall in the jumbo box of crayons?"

"I'm Rainbow Brite, silly," she said. "She's a classic cartoon icon."

"You look like an overgrown six-year-old," Kurt snorted.

She frowned. "Why do you have a baseball bat?" she asked. "And Finn, why do you have a shovel?"

Kurt glanced at Finn, dressed in baggy shorts, a green ringer tee, and white sneakers. He wielded a shovel in one hand, and his grin stretched from ear to ear. "We're Ed and Shaun," he explained. "From Shaun of the Dead."

"He's Ed, I'm Shaun," Kurt added. He adjusted his red tie. "We drew straws to see who got to pick the theme. Next year, we're playing rock paper scissors. I'll win, since you always pick scissors."

"Yeah, and you always pick rock."

Rachel's frown deepened. "Finn, I thought you were going to be Starlite," she said. "I got the costume for you and everything."

He shifted his weight awkwardly. "Yeah, I just thought…being a magical white horse was kind of…not manly," he said.

"But we're dating," she protested. "Everyone will expect us in a couple costume."

Kurt leaned in. "Rachel, dressing up as a talking white pony with a rainbow tail is more flamboyant than I could ever be," he said.

Finn clapped a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "Besides, I've never had a brother to dress up with," he said.

Kurt glanced away, slightly pleased and slightly embarrassed. "Now, can we stop with the interrogation and get inside?" he asked. "It's raining, and getting wet makes me grouchy."

"Fine," Rachel huffed, opening the door wide enough for them to enter. "Leave your weapons of zombie destruction in the foyer."

Kurt leaned his baseball bat carefully against the wall. Finn dropped his shovel with a noisy clang. "Everybody else here?" he asked.

"I think we're just waiting for Quinn and Sam," Rachel said, brushing past them to the living room. Kurt and Finn both scowled- Kurt because he was bitter over his gaydar obviously being broken over the bleach-blond new kid, and Finn because, no matter what he told himself, he was still kind of bent out of shape over Babygate.

Most of the glee club was piled onto the couches in Rachel's living room, decked out in their Halloween finest. Mercedes pushed the skirt of her pale green ball gown out of the way so Kurt could sit beside her.

"Mercedes Jones," he said, shaking his head. "Really? You went the Disney princess route?"

"Oh, come on," she grinned. "You loved the Princess and the Frog all five times I dragged you to see it."

He sighed. "I'll admit, I enjoyed it," he sighed. "But _everyone _has been a Disney princess for Halloween before." He plucked gingerly at her skirt. "And really. Tulle?"

She poked him lightly in the ribs. "Tiana rocks and you know it," she said. He rolled his eyes and sat down beside her.

"And not everyone has been a princess for Halloween," Artie pointed out from the depths of his Master Chief helmet. "I sure haven't."

"Me neither," Finn said, flipping open the pizza box on the top of the stack and lifting a hot slice of Hawaiian pizza.

Santana raised an eyebrow and tugged on the hem of her French maid costume. "And I'm guessing _you _have, fancy pants?" she said.

Kurt raised a hand. "Halloween of 1997. I was four. And no, you may not see the pictures," he said.

Puck choked on his Mountain Dew. "Frickin' A, dude," he said. "A princess? Which one?"

"Ariel, obviously," he said.

Tina frowned. "Obviously?" she asked.

"Everyone knows Ariel is the best princess," Kurt shrugged. "Redheaded, gorgeous voice, spunky, independent, can win a man in three days without even talking to him. She beats all the others."

"What about Belle?" Rachel argued. "She's intelligent. Don't you think a princess ought to be intelligent?"

"Kurt might be right," Puck mused, pulling absently on the sleeve of his Superman tee shirt. "Ariel's hot."

"Or Jasmine," Artie added. "That belly shirt? Awesome."

"I've always liked Mulan," Mike Chang announced.

Tina rolled her eyes. "You would."

"What's _that _supposed to mean?"

Finn raised a hand. "Cinderella's pretty cool," he offered.

"My favorite is Sleeping Beauty," Brittany said. "Or Briar Rose. I can never decide."

"You do realize they're the same person, right?" Mercedes said.

Brittany blinked. "I don't think so," she said.

Mike looked her up and down. "Brittany, who are you supposed to be?" he asked.

She looked down at herself. She wore her Cheerios uniform, but she held a jar of peanut butter in one hand and a box of tissues in the other.

Kurt sighed. "She's a peanut allergy," he said.

Brittany brightened. "You figured it out!" she said.

He resisted the urge to remind her that she already told him her costume idea. "Rachel, do you have any beverage that doesn't contain copious amounts of high fructose corn syrup?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I think we have some sparkling apple juice in the fridge," she offered.

"Good. Get me some."

She rolled her eyes, but got up to do as ordered. Kurt settled back on the couch, crossing his arms across his chest. Mercedes' ball gown poofed over him.

"Mercedes!" he said.

"What are you whining about now?" she said.

"Your dress is _eating _me," he said. "You have enough tulle for a production of Swan Lake. You're going to have to sit on the floor."

"But-"

"Your gown will offer more than enough cushioning. It's like you're wearing a sleeping bag tied around your waist."

Mercedes pulled a face, but moved to sit on the floor, her dress puffing around her. Kurt scooted to the edge of the couch, slipped off his shoes, and tucked his legs underneath him.

Finn plopped down beside him with a plateful of pizza on his knees. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked. Kurt shrugged. Finn offered his plate. "This Hawaiian stuff's pretty good. You should try it."

Kurt looked at it and sighed. "You're just going to bug me all night until I eat it, aren't you?" he said.

Finn waved the plate enticingly in front of him.

"Fine," Kurt sighed. He picked up a piece, balanced it gingerly on his fingertips, and nibbled the crust.

Rachel reentered the room, balancing a plastic cup in her hands. "Guess who's here?" she said.

"Santa," Brittany said.

"Britt, it's Halloween, not Christmas," Santana reminded her.

"Oh."

Sam and Quinn walked into the living room, holding hands. Kurt grabbed his sparkling apple juice from Rachel and sipped it, sulking. "Hey, hey, hey," Sam said, waving.

Tina looked them up and down. Sam's hair was gelled upwards within an inch of his life; Quinn was wearing a green jacket and jeans with her hair tossed loosely around her face. "Who are you supposed to be?" she asked skeptically.

Sam stepped under the overhead lights and held out his arms. "Can't you tell?" he said.

"Why are you covered in glitter?" Puck asked.

"Ah, glitter," Kurt mused. "The herpes of craft supplies."

"We're Edward and Bella," Quinn explained.

"I wanted to be _Jacob _and Bella, so I could run around in cutoffs and no shirt," Sam boasted. "But Q's firmly Team Edward."

"Ugh, those movies suck," Santana said.

"I refused to read the books," Rachel said. "The Twilight series only encourages losing one's sense of self in order to gain a bossy, controlling, occasionally abusive mate."

"And scary vampire babies," Brittany whispered.

Rachel hopped in front of the TV and clapped her hands. "All right, everyone," she said. "Since this is a Halloween party, it stands to reason that we must watch a scary movie."

"All right!" Puck exclaimed. "I say it's time for a Saw marathon."

"Ew, no," Quinn said. "I'm not watching any of that gore porn."

"Says the girl dressed as the most boring 'heroine' of all time," Tina snorted.

"Is this going to be one of the movies where only the virgins survive?" Artie said.

"Can it, Wheels," Santana said. "That just means you'd be the last one standing. Or sitting." He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.

Rachel cleared her throat for order. "I think we should watch something scary, yet funny," she said. She picked up a DVD case. "We're going to watch Ghost Ship."

"Never heard of it," Mike said.

"That's because it's awful," she said, her eyes dancing. "It is definitely the dumbest slasher movie ever made. Second only to Troll 2. But I think that should be our second feature."

"Oh," Kurt said. "We're watching two of them?"

Rachel put the DVD in the player. "I think we have enough time for two," she said. She hit play and turned off the lights.

"Really, the lights off? Is this necessary?" Kurt whined.

"Shut up, Hummel," Puck said. He tossed his empty soda can and through it across the room, bopping him on the top of the head.

"Ow."

Kurt curled against the armrest of the couch and hugged a throw pillow to his chest. It was just a scary movie. It wasn't going to be that. It couldn't be that bad.

Could it?

It certainly didn't start off very scary. The title font was pink and swirly, for heaven's sake. He started to relax when the opening scene turned out to be nothing but a pretty 1960s cruise ship full of glamorous people ballroom dancing. And there was an adorable little girl there. He wasn't very well-versed in horror movies, but surely if there was adorable child, it couldn't end badly, right?

He was horrified a few minutes later when a wire snapped and managed to shoot across the ballroom, cutting everyone in half. Except for the cute little girl, who got splattered with blood when that old guy's head split in half above the nose and the top half of his head slid to the floor.

Brittany shrieked. Puck busted out laughing. Mike and Tina started imitating the bisected ballroom guests, particularly the ones that were still twitching.

Kurt just huddled on the couch, mostly hidden behind the throw pillow.

Apparently no one else was really fazed by the movie. Even Rachel was giggling and pointing out all of the cheesy special effects. He was the only one who was even slightly bothered by it.

It wasn't his fault that he hated scary movies. It all started when he was four, and his parents decided that Thursday night should be date night. So they got Brad from down the street to babysit. Brad's idea of babysiting was putting orange soda in Kurt's sippy cup- spiked with a little Dimetapp to make him sleepy- and popping in a scary movie. Brad apparently thought they were hilarious.

Four-year-old Kurt, on the other hand, had to deal with scary movies through a drug-induced haze. And it was inevitable that when his parents got home around eleven o'clock, he would wake up in a screaming fit, bawling about chainsaws or masks or hook-handed men.

It didn't take long for his parents to figure out the source of their child's misery, and Burt Hummel quickly insured that Brad got into serious trouble. But the damage had been done, and Kurt hadn't been able to handle anything scarier than Hocus Pocus in his entire life.

(He also couldn't deal with the sound of chainsaws, but at least that subject rarely came up.)

So while the rest of the glee clubbers hooted with laughter over the campy horror flick, he took it way too seriously and curled into the safety of the couch, his legs tucked tightly under him so that nothing could reach out from underneath and grab him by the ankles and possibly pull him to hell.

However, that didn't mean Puck couldn't grab him by the neck on his way back from the bathroom, right in the middle of the swimming-pool-full-of-blood scene.

Kurt let out a high-pitched shrill scream, leaping about ten feet in the air. Puck draped over the couch, howling with laughter until tears started in his eyes. "Oh, man," he said. "Did you see that? I think Hummel just peed his pants."

Rachel was forced to pause the movie over everyone's laughter. "Oh, Kurt, are you scared?" Mercedes asked.

"I'm fine," he retorted. "Noah just startled me."

Puck ruffled his hair. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that," he said.

"Be quiet and sit down," Rachel said, waving her hand dismissively at him. "We're almost at my favorite part."

"Ooh, the part with the maggots?" Santana said.

Kurt curled back up his tiny protective ball. _Maggots? _he thought. _I'm not going to survive this…_

The movie kept playing, and everybody else kept laughing. He continued to hide.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, squinting at the sudden bright light in the darkness.

_U ok?_

He frowned. It was from Finn…who was sitting next to him on the couch. He glanced up. Finn flashed him a thumbs up. Kurt rolled his eyes and sent a reply.

_Not a fan of horror movies._

Finn's phone lit up and he checked it, then typed out a message.

_Its ok. Id save u._

Kurt raised an eyebrow.

_?_

Finn laughed silently.

_Big bros look out for lil bros._

Kurt frowned.

_I'm only a few months younger than you._

_Im bigger then u. _

_So are some sixth graders._

_Id save u frm zombeis. _

_You mean zombies?_

_Duh_

Kurt glanced up from his phone just in time to see the adorable little girl from early in the movie, now transformed into a creepy little harbinger of doom, appear out of nowhere on the screen. Without thinking he dropped his phone and lunged for Finn.

Finn set his phone down and draped an arm around Kurt. He huddled there for a moment, breathing heavily and feeling more than a little ashamed of himself.

He glanced around carefully. It was too dark to see anything clearly, so no one had noticed his moment of weakness. Well, except for Finn, who kept watching the movie with his arm tucked around him, seemingly unperturbed.

Kurt stayed where he was. He didn't really want to stay there, but he also didn't want to move and risk people noticing where he was.

They stayed like that for a while, until the girl sailor person found the creepy girl's old cabin aboard the ship and found her corpse still hanging there. That was just a little bit too much.

Kurt curled up against Finn's side; Finn wrapped his arm around his shoulders. He was nice and warm and sturdy and there was something very comforting about how implacable he was.

And it definitely came in handy when that stupid creepy little girl decided to share her life story and show even _more _gruesome deaths. He buried his face against Finn, and was actually relieved when Finn put his hand on the top of his head.

The movie was cheesy and gross and poorly written- especially when they got to the aforementioned maggot scene that Santana was so excited about- and yet it still managed to scare him. At least it was bearable now that he could hide behind Finn. Sure, it was embarrassing, but now he knew that if that little ghost girl came after him, Finn would take her down first.

The movie ended in a fairly predictable plot twist, and Kurt had the presence of mind to bolt upright and resume his previous position before the credits started rolling and the lights came back up.

"That movie is amazing," Brittany said, licking her fingers absently. She had started eating her peanut butter sometime during the film, and the jar was halfway empty.

"It's awful," Quinn said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, but awful in that awesome kind of way," Sam said.

Rachel took the disc out while everyone poured themselves more soda and picked up slices of the now-cold pizza. "The only possible way we can follow Ghost Ship is with Troll 2," she said.

"I've seen that!" Mercedes giggled. "It's so awful."

Kurt dug his fingers into his throw pillow. Finn stood up, stretching his long legs. "I think I might actually go home," he said.

"Aw, why?" Puck complained.

"I'm tired," Finn said. "Football practice. Coach Beiste really worked us over today."

"Yeah, she kinda did," Mike agreed.

"But if you go home, Kurt has to go home," Mercedes objected, putting her hand on his knee.

He patted her hand. "Oh, I might as well go too," he said nonchalantly. "If I don't take emergency precautions, that pizza's going to show up all over my face tomorrow morning."

Rachel kissed Finn goodbye on the lips; Kurt submitted to Mercedes and Quinn kissing him lightly on the cheek. He waved goodbye to the rest of the room and followed Finn to the door.

"Don't forget your zombie killing weapons," Rachel called. Finn picked up the baseball bat, tossed it to Kurt, and shouldered his shovel.

It was freezing outside and the street was empty. The trick-or-treaters had already headed home to get warm and sleep off their sugar overdoses. Kurt hit the remote to his car and climbed inside, shivering in his short-sleeved shirt.

Finn slid into the passenger seat and tossed his shovel in the backseat. He at least had the decency to wait for the doors to close before exclaiming, "Dude! You _hate _scary movies, don't you?"

Kurt backed out of Rachel's driveway and peeled out down the street. "I dislike them," he said coolly.

Finn leaned back and laughed. "You were seriously freaking out," he said.

"Maybe a little."

"Dude, you had your face in my armpit."

"No, I didn't!" he protested, feeling his cheeks heat in embarrassment. "I just…well, I don't like watching horror movies."

Finn reached over and ruffled his hair. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone," he said. "Especially not Puck."

"Thank goodness," he mumbled, resisting the urge to smooth down his hair.

They drove in silence for a little bit, the headlights blaring into the darkness. Kurt cleared his throat. "Thanks for getting me out of there," he said.

"No problem," Finn shrugged. "Although you're going to have to see Troll 2 at some point."

"I don't know…"

"Seriously, it's about trolls that eat people. But they're vegetarians, so they have to turn the people into plants first. It's hilarious," Finn explained.

"Vegetarian trolls," Kurt mused.

"And the acting is awful," Finn added. He started mimicking his favorite scene. "They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! Oh, my goooooooooood!"

Kurt laughed, even though he couldn't help but keep an eye out for spooky little girls as he drove down the dark street. "Maybe next year," he relented.

Finn punched him lightly on the shoulder. "It'll be awesome," he promised. "Wait…are you still going to make me wear a dress next Halloween?"

'You'll see, Finn Hudson. You'll see…"

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Happy Halloween, ladies and gentlemen!

This is verging on crackfic, but it's so much fun. I just really wanted to write a Halloween oneshot. Originally I wanted to write about them going to one of those walk-through haunted houses, but I got about three pages in and realized it was turning into pure angst, and that wasn't fun anymore. So I rewrote it just in time to post on Halloween!

Ghost Ship really is one of the crappiest, most awesomely bad horror movies ever. A friend of mine in high school kept telling me to watch it, so when it came on TV the other day I was like "sure...why not." And ohmigad, you guys, it's awful. I'm easily spooked by scary things, and I just sat there laughing.

I've only seen one scene of Troll 2, the one that Finn quotes, but believe me, it's bad. Just search for it on Youtube if you need a good laugh.

This jumps off slightly from my previous oneshot, "Losing My Religion," when Finn makes Kurt watch Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. It was too good an idea to pass up.

So yeah! I hope you liked this! And have a good Halloween, everybody! Personally, I'm dressing up as Ramona Flowers, and I plan on eating a royal crapton of candy...


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